Continuous Discovery Habits: Discover Products that Create Customer Value and Business Value

In Continuous Discovery Habits, Teresa Torres traces the evolution of product development practices. In the early days of software development, particularly before the rise of Internet technology, product decisions were primarily made through annual budget cycles that business executives controlled. These executives would assign fixed-timeline projects to engineering teams with predetermined specifications, often with little to no input from actual users.

This traditional approach frequently resulted in what the industry came to know as “waterfall” development—a linear, sequential process where requirements were set in stone at the beginning, followed by lengthy development cycles. The consequences were predictable yet persistent: delayed projects, exceeded budgets, and, most critically, products that failed to resonate with their intended users. The disconnect between decision-makers and end-users was structural, built into the very process of how products were conceived and developed.

A significant shift occurred in 2001 with the creation of the Agile Manifesto, which introduced principles emphasizing adaptability, customer collaboration, and iterative development. This marked the beginning of a fundamental change in how software was developed, though the transformation of product development practices lagged. While engineering teams adopted agile methodologies for building products, the decision-making process about what to build often remained rooted in older, less flexible approaches.

The rise of Internet-based products in the 2000s and 2010s brought new challenges and opportunities. Release cycles accelerated dramatically, moving from yearly to quarterly, then monthly, and eventually to daily deployments. Enhanced capabilities for monitoring product usage and measuring impact accompanied this acceleration. However, these capabilities often revealed a troubling pattern: Many carefully built features went unused or failed to deliver their intended value.

The emergence of the product management role as a distinct profession during this period reflected a growing recognition of the need for a dedicated focus on product decisions. However, early product management often emphasized market research and competitor analysis over direct user engagement. The “build it, and they will come” mentality persisted in many organizations, particularly startups, where founder vision was frequently prioritized over customer research.

By the time Torres wrote Continuous Discovery Habits in the early 2020s, the industry had accumulated decades of evidence about the costs of disconnected product development: failed startups, unused features, and products that solved problems no one had. The book emerged against this backdrop of increasing recognition that traditional approaches to product development, even when paired with agile development practices, were insufficient for creating truly valuable products.

Torres’s work addresses a critical gap in product development methodology: While numerous frameworks existed for how to build products (Agile, Scrum, Kanban), there was less structured guidance for determining what to build. The book’s emphasis on continuous discovery practices represents an evolution of product development thinking, one that bridges the gap between agile development practices and effective product decision-making. It synthesizes lessons learned from decades of industry experience while incorporating insights from cognitive psychology, design thinking, and organizational behavior to create a comprehensive approach to modern product development.